


how to witness what I can't express

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [264]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (they're not), Galadriel thinks she's above it all, Gen, Mithrim, Processing Trauma but pretending you're not, because the timeline needs to move sometime, much like Haleth, this is set about a week after Maedhros wakes up, title from a poem by Ethan Canin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25195897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Galadriel shall never have children.
Relationships: Aredhel & Galadriel | Artanis, Finrod Felagund | Findaráto & Galadriel | Artanis
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [264]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Kudos: 19





	how to witness what I can't express

She shall never have children. Sticks and Frog—strange names for strange little birds, always flitting about after that not-Mother of theirs—have given her reason to think this anew, but they were not the source of her original certainty.

No, it was not insolent charges that convinced her. Rather, Galadriel decided to be forever motherless when she saw pale, primrosy Elenwe, fainting with labor pains, fading with time.

Idril is a memory; a downy bundle that Galadriel had little chance to touch, what with the way she was shared around between Turgon and Fingon and Aredhel and Uncle Fingolfin.

Aunt Anaire, too, but Galadriel doesn’t particularly like to think of Aunt Anaire. Isn’t it enough to think of Elenwe, whom she did not love, when she must think of lost women?

(Aredhel isn’t lost, yet. Yet Galadriel fears it is only a question of time.)

“You seem to like it here,” Aredhel says, pretending not to sound hopeful. It has been, perhaps, a week (Galadriel does not see much purpose for counting) since Maedhros gave them reason to bargain their way inside these stone-broad walls.

“I do not know why I should like or dislike the _place_ ,” Galadriel answers, pointedly. They are digging for cattail roots, which, when boiled and peeled, are terribly bland unless well-spiced.

Mithrim’s stews are not always well-spiced. It depends on who attends to the stewing.

“If you didn’t want to see our cousins ever again,” Aredhel points out, with Fingon’s blind loyalty and Turgon’s irritating logic, “Why did you come?”

“When I set out with you, I couldn’t quite predict the path that lay ahead of us,” Galadriel retorts. She looks at Aredhel as she says it. It has been long since they spoke of this; there were so many other worries, on the road. Then, too, Aredhel’s grief had sometimes been so vast and so frightening that Galadriel dared not prod at its outer reaches with her own opinions.

Now, the dust has settled. Now, they are drawing lines in it. Such is the way of things.

“I shall never see things as you do,” Aredhel says flatly, not breaking her gaze. “But let’s not quarrel. Not while we’re ankle deep in this blasted mud.”

“There shouldn’t be _mud_ in December,” Galadriel agrees, accepting the peace offering.

Fingon and Turgon wouldn’t broker peace. Aredhel is not the same as them, not in manner or in heart—Galadriel must admit _that_ , if only to herself.

“Do you know who is like you?”

“What?”

“Ha! Look at you, not paying heed to what I say.” Aredhel straightens up, lifts her basket. The roots fill it, gleaming palely beneath their filthy husks. “Well, I think Sticks is like you.”

Galadriel is at once offended, without particular reason. “You just think that because we’re both towheaded.”

“And stubborn. And protective. You see how she looks after Frog.”

“Someone ought to give them new names,” Galadriel says, pulling her last root.

“Says she-once-called-Artanis.”

They start up the hill together. Then Aredhel says,

“You know, Celegorm told me that Sticks gave Maedhros that name. Russandol.”

Galadriel has not yet visited Maedhros, and indeed, she has no intention of so doing. At first Finrod didn’t want her to. Perhaps the prohibition is lifted, but she has not asked. What would Maedhros want with her, anyway, or she with him? She never liked him much, what with his Finwe-laugh and his Feanor-eyes. “Russandol. Maybe it means something red.”

“Like _russet_. Yes, I thought that.” Aredhel falls quiet. “I’ve thought of…I’ve wanted to speak to him, but I don’t think Fingon would let me in, just now.”

Galadriel’s spine crawls. “You _want_ to see him?”

“Yes. No.” Aredhel shakes her head. “No matter.”

Of course, Galadriel cannot forget a thought, once someone has bored it into her head. She has, still, no desire to visit her cousin, but she mulls over the rest of them. Those who are easily led.

_You’ll all go back to him. I knew it. I knew it._

She stays apart from her family and Mithrim’s strangers, watching her brother talks with Beren, the children, the grey man who sometimes scolds the children, Tabitha (whose plainspoken understanding of herbs and horses both has made Galadriel remember her name).

Finrod used to pretend that he was destined for a higher purpose, but Galadriel has always believed that his true desire was for conversation. Her brother will befriend almost anything, if he thinks a good conversation glimmers at him from the near future. If she was not so on her guard, she might draw near, try and listen to what they are saying.

But she _is_ on her guard. She and Finrod are both alone here, unmoored in many ways from their beginnings, plotting their courses by the strongest wind blowing. Finrod surrounds himself with friends; Galadriel is proud of how little encloses her.

It’s always been so. They always got on better than other brothers and sisters, because they both knew themselves to be alone. Such knowledge comes at cost, of course.

Where are Aegnor and Angrod now? Are they happy enough, with Father and Mother and each other, with their old schoolfellows turning into fellow businessmen of near future? Do they miss her? She was never drawn into their intimate circle. The patterns of families are like that, sometimes. The Feanorians are _all_ like that. Much worse, their united front, than if they stood proudly alone.

Bound to each other, they wreak havoc against anyone not themselves. Even their Fingons, even their Aredhels.

 _Fingon could have died in the winter_ , she thinks fiercely, in the longshot direction of the ghost behind the silent door.

 _Aredhel could have died_. She _glares_ that at Celegorm, who crosses the hall like a bullet, interested in nothing but his next step.

Turgon and Elenwe and Idril. Aredhel and Argon. Father and Mother and Finrod.

Galadriel shall never have children.

If she did, she might love them, and that would never do.


End file.
